USA's Necessary Roughness to tackle Manti Te’o?

Krystal Clark is a Los Angeles based entertainment writer who loves all things sci-fi, comic book and fantasy. When she's not consuming other worldly genres, she likes to soak up classic cinema. Krystal has a real soft spot for Frank Cap...

All is fair in love and football

Sometimes life is stranger than fiction. That's why the folks behind USA's Necessary Roughness are zoning in on Manti Te'o. The athlete's relationship woes could show up on an upcoming episode.

Could a Manti Te’o story appear on Necessary Roughness? The USA hit is known to dramatize real life events. The series, which centers on a psychiatrist to celebs, covers everything from rockstars to pro skaters, but football is its bread and butter.

These days, you can't turn on the TV without seeing Te’o's face. The Notre Dame linebacker has become the talk of the town. It was recently revealed that Te’o was duped or "catfished" by an internet hoax.

The football player was in a longterm relationship with a woman (Lennay Kekua), who unfortunately died of cancer. But there was a twist: He'd never met her and she wasn't real.

“We only just now started to map out season 3, [but] of course it comes up about every five minutes in the [writer's] room,” says Shapiro. “We’ve yet to determine if we’ve figured out a way how to slot it into what we do on our show, [but] we’d like to.”

So what's the driving force behind the Te'o interest?

“There’s something about it that just appeals and is interesting to everybody,” he says. “Those are always the kinds of stories we want to try to find — where the human condition is larger than just some small sports tale.”